Are you looking for a summer comedy that is going to piss off half the world, leave half the rest shaking their heads in confusion and the rest laughing their butts off? The Little Hours might be for you. This movie has flown under my radar and the trailer is actually over a week old, but this is the first news I’d heard of it. In the movie, Alison Brie, Aubrey Plaza, and Kate Micucci play what appear to be the world’s nastiest medieval nuns. It looks like a lot of the movie is going to be about them evading Nick Offerman, disrespecting John C. Reilly, and trying to have sex with Dave Franco (when they aren’t already having sex with each other). It doesn’t look like it’s going to be the family film of the year, but it does look like it’s got the potential of becoming a cult classic.
Medieval nuns Alessandra (Alison Brie), Fernanda (Aubrey Plaza), and Ginevra (Kate Micucci) lead a simple life in their convent. Their days are spent chafing at monastic routine, spying on one another, and berating the estate’s day laborer. After a particularly vicious insult session drives the peasant away, Father Tommasso (John C. Reilly) brings on new hired hand Massetto (Dave Franco), a virile young servant forced into hiding by his angry lord. Introduced to the sisters as a deaf-mute to discourage temptation, Massetto struggles to maintain his cover as the repressed nunnery erupts in a whirlwind of pansexual horniness, substance abuse, and wicked revelry.
Loaded with comedic talent and written with an off-kilter, yet knowing touch, The Little Hours is an immensely charming romp. Writer/director Jeff Baena’s riotous follow-up to Sundance Film Festival favorites Life After Beth and Joshy has transferred the nervy comedic energy from his earlier work to the Middle Ages with hilarious results.
The Little Hours hits theaters June 30, 2017.